[HISTORICAL ISSUE] - Greatest defeats of the Ottomans in the Tsardoms timeframe

[Under_Siege]

So Suleiman send his whole army to walls and whole army is killed ? normally maximum few hundred soldier dying in the ordinary charges in the sieges. also charges were done by small numbers, Ottomans usually tried the crack the walls with tunnelers and artillery fire.

Can't you read? I said that several chargeS were stopped before Suleiman himself command the troops and made the final attack.

actually he mentions in his text 5 283 220....but it's IMPOSSIBLE!!!!! How could you coordinate 5.2 million men, providing them with food (at that time there wasn't a MacDonalds' around to feed them), to give them water (from small rivers and wells...).....etc. etc. etc. etc. etc......most probably Xerxes had around 250.000 troops (300.000 tops...)

Good question. Have you heard about Indian armies? Elephants were the main force, and very often, the battle was won by the guy with more elephants. So, some rulers were gathering 5000-6000 elephants, even more. Elephants have big stomachs, so the rulers were building hambars with food near theit route so that noone will die by hunger. And, if, for example, Egypt send 30 000 military force, why couldn't send food and water for those soldiers and general to command them and etc. By the way, Herodotus mention that when the army was travelling, from sea were comming ships with provisions, and the rulers of the territories, where the army was, sent food too.
And I don't understand, why would Herodotus (what is this emoticon???)on history - he is chronicler, not some dumb kid which is talking big...

when I said artilery I meant modern artilery, weapons before were very simple AND there was much less people, like a LOT much less people
how could Ottomans suply with water and food 200 000 men at Rhodos? difficult even today, imposible back then

I know what you meant, and I know also that artilery was used against walls at that time. Supplies weren't such a big problem for ottomans at that time. As I said before, that was their golden ages And don't underrate the importance of taking Rhodos...

[Tureuki]

"charges were done by small numbers"
are these generals a bunch dumbs ? they're sent thousand soldier to die ? as I said they're mostly tried the crack the walls with tunnelers and artillery fire ,there isn't a general charge until Suleiman ordered to final assault.

Really man what are you talking about ? how can a army lost 100 000 soldier in a single siege ? also Herodotus count the whole army ? all of the ancient historians just "guessed" about the numbers.

Also there isn't too much soldier until Suleiman arrived to island, Rumelian and Anatolian army came with the Suleiman.

[2Shy]

Guys stick to the topic please.

[Under_Siege]

"charges were done by small numbers"
are these generals a bunch dumbs ? they're sent thousand soldier to die ? as said they're mostly tried the crack the walls with tunnelers and artillery fire ,there isn't a general charge until Suleiman ordered to final assault.

Really man what are you talking about ? how can a army lost 100 000 soldier in a single siege ? also Herodotus count the whole army ? all of the ancient historians just "guessed" about the numbers.

Small numbers... 200 000 against 7500. How could the generals sent soldiers to DIE? They were sure of their victory, can't you understand that??? They thought that they will take the stronghold just-like-that.

Why can army lost 100 000 soldiers, when that is HALF of their force, and they just expected to take the city at once. And with half of the army killed, maybe the soldiers were a little scary. Then Suleiman personally gather them, a few words about Jihad and 40 virgins in heaven... And the knights were exhausted because of the long siege and defence.

And about Herodotus - he couldn't count the army, he was 3 years old when the battle of Thermopylae happened. He made some research and asked right people.

PS: Our discussion come to a close... It seems that we cannot reach an agreement.

Guys stick to the topic please.

I'm sorry for the offtopic.

[Tureuki]

Firstly FORGET THE 200 000 soldier, there isn't 200 000 soldier, whole Ottoman army is around 100 000 but irregular forces like Akinjis didn't joined the campaign, most likely Ottoman army is around 60 000 to 80 000. secondly forget the jihad and religious fanatics, Ottomans never used religious fanatics for conquer anywhere since establisment years.

Also there isn't too much soldier until Suleiman arrived to island, Rumelian and Anatolian army came with the Suleiman.

Right people count the whole army ? wake up dude , nobody really knows the numbers just "guessed"

[Under_Siege]

Right people count the whole army ? wake up dude , nobody really knows the numbers just "guessed"

You speak as if you were living in those ages. If, for example, Egypt send 10 000, what do you think, nobody knows about that, huh? Global conspiration? When Herodotus was making his notes, a lot of people were stll living to tell him everything necessary for his research. And making such an army is serious thing. The information was surely saved somewhere... Not just quessing.

So, I'm stopping the discussion with you, as I said before, we cannot reach an agreement. And try to respect opinion, different than your

[Tureuki]

I hope its a joke, you talking about millions of the soldiers !? how you can believe that ? there is documents or something like this in ancient times ? of course ancient people just guessing.

Ok, that's enough let's finish the discussion.

[SerbianInfantry]

...Janissaries are Muslims their origin doesn't matter they grew up as a Muslim, also they are just a small part of the Ottoman armies...

This made me laugh, but than it made me sad....

[Hrobatos]

well its true, no matter who they were they were raised as muslim turkish soldiers

[Wallachian]

Yeap thats right, Janissaries were educated and brought up as Muslims. For all intents and purposes they were Muslims regardless of their ethnic origin.

Also, I don't get why we started talking about the second Siege of Rhodes which was an Ottoman victory. No matter how many men they lost it was a victory, not a defeat and not a decisive defeat.

[Under_Siege]

well its true, no matter who they were they were raised as muslim turkish soldiers

Not only soldiers. Kids taken by that kind of sick tax - it's callеd devshirme or something like that - could became something more if they have intellect - even vezirs sometimes.

[NikeBG]

Phoenix, I'm afraid you're completely missing the point and I suggest you re-read my post, since it's apparent you didn't read a single word of it. But let's be more to the point:

so, you telling me that in earlier times forces were much bigger, not 2x but 4 to 5 times bigger. next i'll here that source men fought on marica were 70000 (cause it's all we have today).

If by "Maritsa" you mean what we call "Chernomen" - remind me what year that battle was, will you? 1371? Quite far from the periods we're talking about.

war didn't last 5 or 6 days, but couple of years.

Not exactly. Wars usually lasted just a few months, during the summer, and then the armies would return to the fields to harvest the crops and then go out again the next year (with various exceptions, including f.e the Cumans, who prefered to fight in cooler times (spring, early summer) and then return to their lands when the temperatures on the Balkans get too hot for their horses). If any forces would not be disbanded (f.e. to keep a siege - Samuil besieged Larissa for 4 years, IIRC), they would be a minority, usually regular troops of the nobles' retinues. In the West, even by the 13th century, it was even recorded for how long could commoners be recruited on their own expenses and at which time they would have to start getting paid if they're not disbanded (2-3 months after the start of the campaign usually, IIRC). This is, repeating again, about the earlier periods. In Tzardoms' time, when pretty much everyone relied almost entirely on mercenaries and regular troops, forces were smaller (including for Bulgaria, where in most cases the army's around not more than 10-15 000 troops), but heavily armed, well-skilled and could wage war for as long as they're getting supplies and payment (and are still alive, of course). But, again, we're not talking about Tzardoms' time - we're talking about the times of the FBE, when the greatest part of the armies consisted of commoner levies and where, in some cultures, war was a usual source of income.

and what's more important is that you tell it was in periods of first bulgarian empire, when bulgars settled balkans, they came in "enormous" numbers and suddenly in times of second empire, when they totally settled, and were much more widespread than in dark ages, they dropped in menpower.

Well, your attempt at sarcasm is rather inapropriate, considering both the sources and archaeology show the Bulgars did flood over the Balkans in two groups (there's traces from the mouth of the Danube till Albania), but that is beside the point. So, yes, you're actually pretty much correct, for reasons I've already explained. But, here, I'll say it even simpler - in the earlier times, the total population of the state was indeed smaller, but the mobilization rate was higher. Then again, wars were not fought on massive scales, but much more in smaller skirmishes and occasional battles. F.e. the aforementioned battle of Anchialus, with supposedly 60 000 BGs versus 62 000 Byzes, was an extreme exception - this was almost the entire Byzantine army pulled out of ALL its territories (after they concluded a peace with the Arabs and left some minimal garrisons) versus the entire Bulgarian army (minus some small garrisons left to delay any possible Serbian and Magyar incursions) meeting in one of the very few, if not the only massive open-field clash in FBE history. If you've read my old translations of articles about the style of warfare of the early Bulgars, you'll see that everyone agrees that they much prefered smaller battles, ambushes, night-raids - i.e. non-conclusive battles where they could easily flee without loosing too much men. To further show that point - in FBE history, we have three periods of extensive warfare, which greatly diminished the manpower: 1. Krum's wars against the Avars and Byzantines (including the devastating campaign of Nikephoros Genikos of 811, where he supposedly destroyed two Bulgar armies of 12 000 and 50 000 men (which everyone agrees is an exaggeration, since that's probably more than the entire army of the whole state at the time, wheareas we later see that Krum emerged victorious (true, after having to hire Avars, Slavs and recruit the women, which does show a significant hit in his manpower) and then sacked the capital), which were followed by the relatively peaceful reign of Omurtag (only some minor skirmishes in Frankish territory), most famous as Omurtag the (Re-)Builder. 2. Simeon's wars with Byzantium, including the 917 battle of Anchialus, followed by the incredibly peaceful reign of Petar, which lasted more than 40 years. 3. The epopee of Samuil vs. Basil II, which resulted in the Byzantine conquest of Bulgaria. Heck, we might even add Presian's conquest of Macedonia and Boris' following reign. The common thing - long wars and "great battles" were especially devastating to the state, which is why "great battles" are an exception in FBE history. That's the very reason why Bulgaria fell - Byzantium had a greater potential of manpower and Basil knew well enough how to use it to his advantage.

so, fearsome normans conquered many nations and lands, got to even sicily, and had smaller armies than bulgaria and byzantine empire.

That's a great blunder you're taking there, since those "fearsome Normans" (Norsemen (or eventually Vikings) is actually more accurate, unless you consider Normandy and Sicily "many nations and lands") you're talking about are a completely different thing. F.e. the Vikings were not a nation of their own, as you well know - they were groups of Scandinavian raiders. They were a warrior society (at least in the earlier times) with great naval manouverability, which allowed them to raid and even eventually conquer lands with greater ease. What you can see there is a somewhat similar case to Bulgaria, with the difference that Scandinavia was much more sparcely populated and the Viking manouverability was greater and allowed them to take much greater distances and have their attacks be much more successful. On the other hand, that also prevented them from using "armed people" strategies, since they obviously couldn't build and support a large enough fleet that "all" their battle-able people could take part in those raids (and considering raiding was far more lucrative than farming, I have no doubt most men would've prefered to be raiders, if they could afford it). On the Balkans, however, there were no such great natural barriers, preventing the masses of armed people from a warrior society from taking up arms in defense of their lands or in launching a raiding campaign.

now let's tak the crusades, in which many christians were evolved. first crusade had 35000 men, but counting whole western europe. second crusade the same. and yet, in siege of damascus, they were suddenly 50000 crusaders (what would it be if they counted reserves, cause if they failed the battle). this only tells how sources are not reliable, that historians put some numbers by their point of view, and it was very popular on balkans in early periods as i can see

Good thing I already mentioned nobody's seriously considering the contemporary numbers, but modern historians make estimates of their own of what's plausible and what's not.

[matija191]

hahaha nice one i like that battle just cause it shows how historians like to changes some things in their records, 2000-3000 men vs 100000 - 300000 men

never heard about anything near 300 000 Turks at Szigetvar ....it was a 90 000 strong Turkish army which was raised for conquering city Vienna and the rest of Habsburg dominion....Zrinski had 2 500 soldiers....

[Hrobatos]

me neither, I always heard number about 100 000, led by Mehmed II the Conquer ( Fatih ) to take Wiena
he died during siege of Szigetwar so army went home, and very siege itself took too long

[Tureuki]

Suleiman I the Magnificent

[Hrobatos]

yes your right, my mistake

[uanime5]

Found an interesting battle fought by Vald the Impaler in 1462, where he ambushed a Turkish army of 60,000 with up to 30,000 men. He caused 15,000 casualties but lost 5,000 men.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Attack

Though most of Vald's battle were small scale skirmishes.

[Wallachian]

Yes, that is quite an interesting battle especially because there is still a dispute whether it should be considered a victory or not. Vlad's plan was to attack the camp by surprise and kill the sultan. Although it was succesful initially the janissaries managed to rally around the sultan and eventually the Wallachians retreated after causing heavy casualties among the turks. The turks did lose 15,000 men while Vlad only lost 5,000 however he could not afford to lose that many men as his army was much smaller.

From one point of view, in its overall objective of killing the sultan and routing the ottoman army the attack was a failure. However, after the battle the Turks were demoralised and upon reaching the capital Targoviste and seeing the forest of impaled turkish troops decided to retreat. So from another point of view it was a decisive factor in the ottoman retreat and can be seen as a victory.

And to add to the above discussions about army numbers and medieval exagerations there are so many variations of the number of troops Mehmed II took on his 1462 invasion of Wallachia. In his letter to the vizier he mentions 150,000 troops, in a letter from Francesco Sforza 400,000 troops are mentioned, Tursun Bey estimates 250,000, Chalcondyles mentions 250,000 and Tommassi mentions 60,000 regulars and 30,000 irregulars. You can judge for yourselves how army numbers can be distorted!

[Tureuki]

Most likely 50 000 to 70 000.

[Wallachian]

Yeah that seems like a decent estimation, plus you can never know how many were actually fighting troops and how many were just camp followers and auxiliaries that did not fight.